The Lips, the Teeth, the Tip of the Tongue
by justrumbelledearie
Summary: Seminary student Joseph Macavoy secretly dreams of becoming an accomplished artist. When English major Belle French poses nude for his figure drawing class, it's love at first sketch.
1. Figure Drawing

"You aren't whom I was expecting, Miss—?"

"French."

Belle tugs her chunky, cable knit beanie off of her head and thrusts out a chilly hand. Her smile is anxious.

"My name is Belle French, sir. Professor O'Reilly's teaching assistant. Or—one of them, anyhow. Something came up at the last moment, and he won't be able to keep his regular appointment today. He sends his kind regards—and he said you pay twelve quid an hour?"

She shifts her weight from foot to foot and adjusts the strap of her heavy knapsack.

The portly art professor sniffs and brushes an imaginary speck of lint from his cotton painter's smock. His nail beds are ragged and black with ink.

"The Maynooth University art department pays twelve pounds per hour to _experienced_ models who are capable of properly holding a pose and do not arrive to class ten minutes tardy."

Belle glances up at the ticking classroom clock.

It reads 3:10pm.

"Well, I can easily hold a pose, sir. I used to do ballet. If you'll just point me in the direction of the nearest washroom that I can get changed in, I'd be happy to put a rush on it…"

The professor shakes his shaggy head and gives her a thorough, dubious once-over, appraising Belle's cap-flattened hair, her slouchy Uni sweatshirt, her muddy, unlaced boots, and her wan, blotchy face—pale from staying up past midnight again with a well-worn copy of Dante's _Divine Comedy._

He sighs.

"Right, well, we were in the midst of a week-long study of Professor O'Reilly's rear musculature—but it would seem that we have no other options. Young lady, please take the models' robe hung up by the podium. The water closet is just around the corner on your right."

"Sure—excellent. I'll be back in two shakes."

The communal robe feels stiff and unwashed in Belle's hands, but she shrugs and decides not to dwell on it. She won't be wearing the dreary thing for very long anyhow.

She dodges paint-splattered easels and skirts wooden stools on her way out of the crowded, sunlit art studio. The dozen or so students who have already arrived to class are busy unpacking their supplies and tacking up white butcher paper. They pay her no mind.

Pausing at the threshold of the room, she turns back and calls out over her shoulder, "Twelve quid an hour, correct?"

The professor nods disdainfully and shoos her out of his sight with impatient, ink-stained hands. She hurries down the hall.

Once the washroom door is securely dead bolted behind her, Belle kicks off her sopping wet, rubber Wellies and shucks her ripped, white-washed jeans, followed by her wool socks and her pink polka dot 'Thursday' knickers.

It is Friday.

Her baggy Uni sweatshirt and grey, ribbed tank top are the last to go. She is left shivering and bare underneath the harsh florescent lights. Belle's toes curl up against the chilly, beige-and-white tiled floor, and she stifles a laugh, muttering: "Ugh—cold, cold, cold!"

After pulling on the stiff, art department-issue robe, she gathers up her clothing in an ungainly bundle and mouths a kiss to herself in the washroom mirror, whispering: "Knock 'em dead, beautiful."

Feeling daring and quite delighted with her own bravura, Belle winks at her pale reflection, then hustles barefoot back down the hallway to the art studio.

"Ah—you haven't deserted us! Come along and make haste, Miss—?"

She ducks her head, hiding a bemused smile. "It's 'French,' sir."

The art professor motions to a spot on the polished, paint-flecked floor for Belle to dump her things, then arches a bushy eyebrow when she squats down to dig around in her overstuffed knapsack.

"Eh, what are you doing?"

"I was thinking," Belle replies, looking quite triumphant when she manages to fish out a battered, paperback copy of _Ulysses,_ "Ah—here you are! I was thinking, sir, that perhaps the class could do 'portrait of a woman reading?'"

"We most certainly will not!"

The art professor harrumphs and holds out his hand for the robe.

"I won't pay you to do your coursework, Miss French. You said that you used to be a dancer—so go and assume fourth position. Center of the podium—chop chop! Just shove that chair aside."

Sighing, Belle drops her brick-of-a-book back onto her knapsack, shrugs off the stiff robe and hands it over, then carefully climbs the three wooden steps leading up to the low dias. The air in the studio is warm, and she is just as at ease in her bare skin as she would be in an over-sized, woolly pullover or slouchy sweatpants.

She shakes her mussed, chestnut brown hair back off of her shoulders, positions her tiny feet just so, curves one arm out in front of her chest, and gracefully arches the other up over her head.

"Alright?" she asks.

"Nearly so."

The professor climbs the three rickety steps, stares at her critically, then tilts Belle's chin slightly upwards with a cool, deliberate index finger, turning her face off to one side.

"Facial muscles relaxed," he tells her. "Do not smile."

Satisfied, he turns to face the chattering classroom, still standing directly in front of her on the podium.

"Alright, class—_class!"_

He claps his hands together loudly, and his voice booms throughout the high-ceilinged studio. "A figure in motion strikes fear in the heart of many an artist. Why is this so? Because the degree of difficulty is _that much higher._ Which leg bears the weight? Who can tell me?"

He leans down and roughly taps Belle's right kneecap.

She staunchly holds her pose and does not smile, even though his shaggy head and bushy eyebrows are scant inches from her groin.

A redhead in the front row answers confidently: "The left leg, sir!"

"Exactly so! And to be convincing, the artist must accurately convey both which limb bears the weight _and_ where there is muscle strain. Additionally, there is the difficulty of foreshortening—the proportions of the limb closest to the artist can be quite the sticky wicket. Tell me, what will help us as we draw?"

"The center line," several members of the class dutifully chorus.

"Precisely. Mr. Macavoy, might I have your full attention, please?"

Still holding her pose, her shoulders already beginning to tire, Belle follows the professor's stern gaze to the solitary student who _isn't_ intently studying her naked form.

The young man sits alone in the back row, and his eyes are firmly fixed on the polished, cement floor. A crimson blush is slowly creeping up his slender neck and into his pale, unshaven cheeks. It deepens and blooms when his name is bellowed a second time.

_"Mr. Macavoy!"_

"Sir?" With great effort, the young man lifts his head.

"Please tell us, Mr. Macavoy—in this late afternoon light, where will the deepest shadows fall?"

The boy swallows hard, as if he is trying to move a bur down his throat.

He shifts his gaze to Belle's lean and lovely body with visible trepidation. His irises are a warm, nutmeg-brown, and the hollows beneath his eyes are shaded by the same dark circles that hang upon Belle's own face. His limp, brown hair looks many weeks past due for a trim and several days past due for a wash. It slumps down over his ears and scraggles outwards around his flushed neck.

"They will fall beneath her—ah, they will fall upon her torso, sir."

"Yes, exactly so. Well, carry on then. I will be walking around to examine your progress. Remember the center line!"

Now that his eyes have fallen upon her, the pale young man cannot seem to pry them away. His gaze charts a slow, awestruck, hungry course from the curve of her belly up to Belle's modest, pink-tipped breasts, then back downwards again to her white, willowy thighs and the thatch of tawny curls nestled between her parted legs.

There is white-hot electricity in his rapt scrutiny, and Belle feels it crackle upwards along her arched, immobile spine.

She stares back at him, utterly enthralled.

Seeming to forget himself, the boy lifts his shadowed eyes to her face, and she cannot help but smile—he is so very hesitant and appealing.

At that welcoming, upward quirk of her lips, he startles and sucks in his breath, accidentally knocking his charcoals and pencils to the floor, making an enormous clatter. The students around him whistle, stomp, and laugh, although one of them is kind enough to help him scramble on the hard floor after his scattered supplies.

"I'll wager this isn't a regular sight over at the seminary—am I right, Father Joe?"

There is another merry, good-natured peal of laughter from 'Father Joe's' classmates, and the young man's searing blush spreads all the way up to his hairline. Straightening upright, his pencils firmly in hand, he briefly shuts his eyes, then brushes off his black pant legs and turns his full attention to the white butcher paper upon his easel.

A marvelous transformation overtakes him as he begins to draw.

His high forehead furrows, and he seems to fall into a trance, only glancing upwards every few minutes with his liquid, full-blown pupils to stare intently at Belle's heart-shaped face.

She takes pity and smothers her smiles, but meets his eyes whenever he cares to look, wondering what it is that he is furiously creating on the other side of the easel.

His thin right arm, bare up to his meager bicep, moves swiftly over the paper. His tongue darts out to quickly wet his lips.

He tears down one sheet and tacks up another, working ever faster.

The art professor ends the session with another series of loud claps and with his instructions for the weekend's homework. Belle sighs loudly, stretches languidly, and retrieves the art department robe, belting it loosely at the waist.

The boy is still working furiously.

A sheen of perspiration has broken out across his forehead. His teeth are sunk deep into his lower lip, and he doesn't seem to realize that class has ended. It is most curious.

Barefoot, Belle tours the studio while the students pack up their things. She sees her lithe figure done in pastels and charcoal, graphite and ink. She sees rough sketches and careful studies, all done at various levels of mastery. She sees her narrow shoulders, her small breasts, her fleshy thighs, and her rounded calves—all reflected back to her from a dozen different angles, envisioned a dozen different ways.

When she finally walks around behind the pale boy's easel, his arm slows, then halts. His shoulders slump. His whole body seems to shrink.

She has broken his trance, and she it sorry for it.

"I usually draw landscapes."

He mumbles his words like a shame-faced, overdue apology.

He is addressing her, but staring intently at the paper in front of him. On it, Belle sees only her face, drawn again and again. Sketch after sketch of her long-lashed eyes, her full lips, her pert nose—all fading away into nothing below her arched neck.

He has perfectly captured the faraway light that comes into her eyes when she is enjoying a particularly delicious story. Her mother used to comment upon it: "Look at you, love! You're off with the faeries again."

The way this boy has drawn her, Belle looks—_sainted _almost. Nearly Madonna-like. As though she is something not of this world.

"Your landscapes must be veritable Wyeths, because your figure drawing is extraordinary! And to do them all so quickly!"

No one has ever cast her in such a generous light before. It is only a series of black and white sketches, but this boy has positively _lit her up_ from within. Belle has a sudden, mad impulse to throw her arms around his thin waist and _squeeze_—but she refrains from doing so. Judging from the overturned pencil case earlier, he would likely keel over dead from the shock of it.

And she doesn't want that. No, quite the opposite.

At her glowing assessment, he finally turns round to face her. He is fidgeting with a blunt piece of charcoal.

"You may keep them if you like. I mean—I would never presume to keep them for myself. I mean—I won't be able to get a passing grade with them anyhow…"

"But—what do you mean you won't be able to get a passing grade? I walked all around the studio, and your drawings are the best out of the whole lot!"

His darling blush returns at her compliment, and Belle really thinks she might hug him if it weren't for this filthy, half-open robe and his obviously delicate sensibilities. And the seminary.

"It's only that—we were meant to focus on the placement of the weight and the muscle strain in the limbs, and I couldn't draw—"

He gestures feebly at her person.

Smiling, Belle saves him the shame of having to spell it out: "Well, Professor O'Reilly's _rear musculature_ will be returning next week, so you should be able to make it up then. My modeling was a one time deal. Probably."

He seems to gather his courage, glancing up from his fidgeting hands.

"You must need the money very badly, to be willing to…"

He lets the question hang, looking fretful.

Belle laughs: "Oh no! _No!_ I'm not at all in dire straits. It's simply that when Professor O'Reilly mentioned this gig was available—and that it paid twelve quid—I knew it was _beschert._ It was meant to be. Standing Room tickets for _Faust_ at the Riverbank are twelve quid tonight, and my flatmate said there are nearly always a few extra available. Seeing as I'm not at all shy about unveiling my private bits—" she shrugs, "Well, it was easy money, wasn't it?"

He stares at her as though he cannot quite believe she is real.

Belle has another marvelous impulse, and this time she decides not to check it: _"_You know,_ Faust_ is an opera about sin, virtue, God, the Devil, and repentance—absolutely perfect for a seminary student, I would think. So is it possible that you might like to—"

_"Yes."_

The word is out of his mouth before she can even finish.

"Yeah? Well, excellent! I'll just go get changed—and then maybe we can grab a bite to eat? The Roost has a decent 'chips and a pint' special tonight."

Belle turns to go, but then turns back towards him, remembering: "Wait, do you _really_ go by 'Father Joe?'"

He shakes his head, grinning bashfully.

"No, it's just Joseph."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, 'Just Joseph.' I'm 'Just Belle.'"

His shy smile widens, and he turns around to scribble her name beneath his drawings over and over and over again:

_"Belle, Belle, Belle…"_


	2. First Kiss

Joseph rushes ahead to hold open the art department's heavy atrium door—but he also seems to want to help Belle with her cumbersome knapsack, all while simultaneously holding up his end of their halting, artless conversation and stealing sideways glances.

Consequently, by the time they finally manage to walk out of the building and into the crisp, evening air, he has worked himself up into tremendous tangle.

"Please—your bag looks so heavy! Let me carry it for you, Belle?"

"You truly want to carry my books? In addition to that gigantic portfolio-art-suitcase-thing? I rather think you'll regret it."

But he insists, looking all at once solicitous and very ill at ease, practically wringing his hands until she shrugs out of her frayed shoulder straps and hands the bloody thing over.

No one has carried Belle's book bag since primary school.

Admittedly, it often weighs more than two stone and seems ready to split apart at the seems at the slightest provocation.

She finds herself wondering if _all_ of the seminary students who attend St. Patrick's College are such earnest, dutiful, gentlemanly fellows. Belle hasn't met many of them during her four years at University, even though the picturesque seminary grounds and austere, stone dorms are only a five minute walk from main campus.

Smiling, tilting her pale face upwards toward the evening sky, she links an arm around Joseph's right elbow and lightly bumps against his slender shoulder, leading him down the concrete steps.

He seems to have lost the thread of their shy talk, so she asks him, "Have you been to The Roost before?"

Beneath their feet, student groups have scrawled advertisements for upcoming dances and political activities in brightly colored chalk. Some cheeky fellow has written: '_Be right back! ~Godot,' _while another scribe, less witty, has scritched out '_Ciaran's a slag' _in uneven, yellow letters.

"I've been there a few times for lunches, yeah. Their shepherd's pie is fair, and they do a better colcannon than my Ma—but don't tell her."

Joseph is distracted, and his words tumble out of his dry mouth much too quickly. He is pretending not to look at the precise spot where Belle's fingertips press against the smooth, bare flesh of his forearm.

Her short nails are painted a buoyant, glossy shade of indigo.

"It's called 'Starry, Starry Night.'"

"Hey—what?"

"The nail polish I'm wearing. It's my absolute favorite color."

She gently squeezes his arm.

"I, ah—I love to paint with blues. Ceruleans. Cobalts." Joseph drags his eyes away from her hand and stares at the expanse of decorated sidewalk up in front of them. "A fallow field with a dazzling autumn sky up above—that's the sort of thing I love best in the world."

Belle hums and nods her agreement, gazing around at the gathering dusk—muted blues fading into indistinct purples. The drowsy sun is slowly disappearing below the horizon. A small flock of starlings twist and dive, finally settling side-by-side upon a high telephone wire.

She gives a little tug to his elbow when they reach the main walkway, pulling him off in an unexpected direction.

"I should grab a decent pullover. Faust at the Riverfront seems to demand something better than a ratty hoodie and jeans, don't you think? I live just over at University Village. It's not too far out of our way. Alright if we stop by my flat before the pub?"

"Sure—sure thing."

Joseph sneaks a glance at his own modest outfit, and she hastens to reassure him: "No, no!—you're perfect as is! Black trousers and a black t-shirt? It's as though you decided to dress for a theatre date when you woke up this morning!"

He softly catches his breath at her careless use of the word: 'date.'

Feeling uncharacteristically flustered, Belle stares down at her muddy Wellies while they walk. She chews on her lower lip and uses her free hand to tuck a tangled strand of hair behind her right ear.

The color has once again flared in Joseph's stubbled cheeks, and he dares another sideways glance, blinking rapidly.

"I didn't mean to imply—" she begins.

"This is the first date I've ever been on."

His soft-spoken confession catches both of them by surprise.

When he offers no more on the subject, Belle musters a reply: "Yes, well—I suppose the seminary curriculum isn't too encouraging of, ah, extracurricular activities. Such as nude figure drawing. Or, ah, dating."

She struggles valiantly to keep her voice low, equanimous, and free of teasing. It feels as though he has cautiously passed over his tender, tremorous, unguarded heart, and she is determined not to drop it.

His brown eyes are lowered, and his eyebrows are drawn together. Joseph's face is so sweetly solemn. He licks his lips, seeming to turn his thoughts over and over within his head before giving them voice.

"In my family, ah…in my family, the eldest sons are barristers—and the youngest sons become priests."

His explanation comes out a bit garbled, and he quickly glances over to see how she will take it. Joseph wants her to understand how it is _in his family,_ and he seems to grasp what a difficult undertaking this is. Families are such knotty, murky, impenetrable things.

"And I take it—you are the youngest?"

"Well, not exactly. I have three younger sisters. Catholic, you know."

He shrugs his slouchy, narrow shoulders, and his smile is wistful and a little bit crooked. It warms her up to see it.

"Presbyterian. Lapsed. You and I make quite the pair."

His smile broadens at that.

_You and I. _

_Quite the pair._

He goes on, "My Ma always dreamed of having more priests in the family. She would tell me, back when I was growing up, that it's a blessed thing the priesthood exists, seeing as I'm not temperamentally suited to much else."

Belle frowns slightly and asks, "What is your temperament?"

"Dreamy—I think is what she meant. Receptive. Probably a little bit, ah—a little oversensitive." His blush deepens.

"Well, you're a dead ringer for an English major," she jokes, then cannot refrain from asking him, "But what about love? A family of your own someday? Doesn't it bother you to give all of that up?"

"It never did—before. I honestly never thought much about it."

He stares off at where the sun has dipped just below the horizon.

"Truthfully, I always felt a good deal—_out of step_ with this world and everyone in it. I never imagined that I would ever find someone who would fall into step beside me."

They are walking shoulder-to-shoulder, in perfect unison.

He is so sweetly candid—so guileless as he painstakingly reveals his gentle soul. So shy when he glances over at her. _And they've only just met._ Belle can scarcely imagine the tender responsibility of becoming this unworldly boy's everything. The thought of it warms up her stomach and cheeks. It makes her feel fuzzy-headed and strangely yearning.

She slows her pace, then comes to a halt.

"Well, this is me."

They are standing in front of a low, brick building with potted plants balanced along most of the window ledges and uneven Venetian blinds. "You still okay to come up?"

Joseph swallows and nods, clutching his large art portfolio close while she fumbles around in the knapsack on his back for her keys.

"It's nothing impressive," Belle apologizes when they walk through the front door of her basement apartment, "Just a studio flat with a mini-fridge and some bookshelves."

'Some bookshelves' is a blatant understatement.

Each of the studio's four, dingy walls has a cheap, particle board bookcase that is absolutely _sagging_ under the weight of Belle's impressive book collection. Her unmade bed—just a caved-in mattress in the middle of the floor, really—has several open books scattered across it. Joseph even spies a tall stack of tattered paperbacks piled up near the wash basin in the tiny bathroom.

Belle crosses the room to switch on a reading lamp, and the pink glow banishes the squalidness from the tiny, messy flat.

"Hey, can I get you a drink while I change?"

She is shuffling around on her unmade bed for a clean cardigan.

"Ah—yes, thanks?"

Joseph stands awkwardly beside the front door, fidgeting with the handles of his art portfolio.

"I've got…oh, let's see here, half a bottle of wine from last weekend, some bottled lagers in the mini-fridge—or there's whiskey."

Belle smiles and abruptly tugs her bulky hoodie up over her head, then rolls her shoulders backwards, sighing. Static electricity makes her mussed hair stand on end. She tosses the Uni sweatshirt onto the floor. Joseph's eyes trace the graceful swoop of her slim waist beneath her soft, ribbed tank.

"Ah—a whiskey would be good. Please."

Belle finds a clean mug in the drying rack on her tiny kitchenette countertop and pours him two generous glugs of liquor, then gestures to the sagging mattress on the floor. "How about you sit? Get yourself comfortable. I'll have myself changed in two shakes."

"Sure—sure thing."

Joseph carefully puts aside his art case and settles himself on the edge of Belle's unmade bed. His bent knees are up in the air on either side of his pink ears. He takes a brief, tentative sip of his drink, then another one, much longer than the first.

"Cheers for this," he says politely, trying not to stare at the contours of Belle's little breasts beneath her thin tank top.

She bites her lip and disappears into the bathroom.

When his pretty hostess reemerges five minutes later in a sky blue cardigan and a short, floral skirt, Joseph's mug is empty.

"Can I get you another?" Belle offers.

He nods gratefully, never taking his eyes off her.

She takes a slow sip for herself this time before handing the half-full mug back over to him. He holds it tight in both hands, staring up at her. Memorizing her.

"I'd like to try again," he tells her, his voice reedy and wishful.

"You'd like to try what again?"

"I'd like to try doing your portrait again. The pose you wanted to use in class: 'Portrait of a Woman Reading.'"

"You want to draw me," Belle clarifies, "Right now?"

He takes a long drink, grimaces, and nods. "Please?"

"You want to draw me reading a book—right now?"

"Yes._ Please."_

She studies him. His brown eyes are hazy, hopeful, and not yet drunk. His cheeks have two high spots of color.

"Joseph, are you quite sure _that_ is what you want to do? Or maybe—maybe would you rather do _this?"_

Belle takes a brave little breath, takes a small step forward, and kneels down in front of the mattress. He is watching her with parted lips.

She takes his nearly-empty mug out of his trembling hands and sets it aside. He exhales, blinking rapidly.

Carefully, Belle uses her fingertips to brush his shaggy, brown hair back out of his eyes. At her gentle touch, Joseph seems to have forgotten how to draw a breath.

She murmurs, "I'd like to kiss you. Is that okay?"

His nod is eager and jerky.

She leans forward and tentatively brushes her soft lips over his, back and forth, ending with a little peck to the quivering corner of his mouth. He responds with a soft, ruined sound, his hands moving helplessly through the air near her shoulder blades.

Drawing back, Belle asks him, "Was that alright?"

Joseph closes his eyes for a moment and passes his tongue incredulously over his lips. "Yes. Yes—please don't stop."

Emboldened, Belle leans forward once more, slips a gentle hand behind his neck, and guides him back to her smiling mouth. His moistened lips part for her, and she kisses him deeply then, even daring to pass her tongue over his warm, shy tongue and gently suckle the fleshy part of his lower lip.

By the end of the kiss, Joseph is breathing raggedly.

He presses his white, fisted hands tightly against her lower back and ducks his head.

Allowing him a moment to catch his breath and gather his thoughts, Belle reaches around behind him on the rumpled bed for a school notebook and a chewed-on pencil.

She flips to a blank page, settles back on her heels, and begins to draw.

"What are—what are you doing?" He is slowly lifting his head, regaining his shattered composure.

Belle gives him a warm, cheeky smile and flips the notebook around for him to see. It is a truly abominable sketch of his face.

Her talents must lie elsewhere.

She explains: "I call it: 'Portrait of an Artist On His First Date.' I have a hunch we're going to want to remember tonight, Joseph."


End file.
